We endeavor towards a healthier and nourished India.

Why India needs to worry about Severe Acute Malnutrition?

According to National Health Survey, and WHO-UNICEF, there are about 8-10 million children afflicted with Severe Acute Malnutrition in India. This constitutes approx. half of all the 20 million SAM children across the world (as estimated by the UNICEF). These figures should be enough to underline the extreme nature of this emergency.

Some studies note that the mortality rate of a SAM child is as much as 20 times the mortality rate of a normal well-nourished child. This essentially renders SAM a health disease and not just a physical ailment. Most experts would also acknowledge that the presence SAM leads to inhibited physical and mental development.

Currently severely wasted children are treated at Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre, where they are administered therapeutic milk products, and some nutritive foods. The problem with this approach is two-fold. One, this model has limited geographic reach. Bringing numerous children to NRCs for month-long treatment is logistically problematic for disadvantaged sections due to economic and security reasons. And two, in country with extremely low bed-density (less than 1.5 per person) and doctor density, this is a diversion of precious health resources.

Article 47 of the Indian Constitution clearly states that a key responsibility of the state is to ensure the “raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health”. The promise of social justice, since the time of Gandhi and Ambedkar, has been the bedrock of the modern Indian state. Failure to do anything about this emergency of SAM would shake that foundation.